Saturn's Moon Enceladus Has an Atmosphere

Dimentox writes "The Mercury News reports that the international Cassini spacecraft has discovered that Saturn's moon Enceladus has a significant atmosphere, NASA said Wednesday. The icy moon's atmosphere may be created by volcanism, geysers or gases escaping from the surface or the interior, the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. Excluding Saturn's giant moon Titan, which was already known to have an atmosphere, it's the first discovery of an atmosphere on one of the more than 30 moons that orbit the ringed planet."

Comments

Re:Well, for one thing

[theparanoidcynic]

So? Mars has 2/3 less gravity than the Earth, and it has an atmosphere of sorts.

The link doesn't seem to say, but anyone know how thick the atmosphere is, or what it's made of?

Nice discovery for the bad news

[nsasch]

It's really great news for the mission especially after the wind measurement tool didn't function properly at first. 15 more years, and there'll be a space craft at this moon.

Re:Nice discovery for the bad news

[aussie_a]

Not necessarily. Is the surface obscured like Titan's? If not, then there isn't as much incentive. I think Europa would be much more important then this moon. Why not send a probe to Triton? After all, Triton may have been liquid for billions of years. It's also possible that Triton may have once harbored life (due to it once having liquid), and that if it did, such life would be COMPLETELY different to Earth's. That sounds more significant then Enceladus.

Why this moon? Just because it's in the news today, doesn't mean it will be all that important tomorrow. Neptune isn't an impossible goal. We can send probes to places other then Saturn.

I wonder what else we're missing?

[cubicle_cowboy]

I know this argument is getting old, but this is a good example why we should be spending more money on unmanned probes instead of high-cost, low-science manned missions like the space station. There's little reason at the moment to spend large sums of taxpayer cash on things that provide little benefit. Imagine all the probes we could be sending instead. A whole fleet of Cassinis, Voyagers, and Mars Rovers combing the solar system! Let the private industry (ie. the guys with Scaled Composites and maybe even Virgin ;) take the baton on manned space flight. Hopefully the private industry will find ways to lower the costs so that when we finally need people in space, it'll be practical.

Re:I wonder what else we're missing?

[QuantumG]

and all the research that needs to be done to make living in space actually possible is going to happen where? Frankly, if we're ever going to go to Mars, we need to learn how to live in space for extended periods of time. Even with our best propulsion systems it will take at least 18 months to get to Mars. During that time astronauts need to live in the ship. That makes your space ship a space station. So how in the world are we supposed to build a self sustaining space station that we can fly to another planet if we can't even sustain one in low earth orbit?

Excluding the creation of some buck rodgers form of space propulsion the ISS is the best bet we've got for space colonisation.

Re:Second First

[aussie_a]

Excluding the first it's the first? We have a word for that. "Second".

People tend to think that the second isn't important, so they like to make stuff the first. It is the first that this probe has discovered. Titan having an atmosphere has been known for some time, this is the first discovery of one of Saturn's moons having an atmosphere in quite a while. This is also what the article meant.

So while your comment has been marked interesting, it's really not. It's pedantic more then anything.

Re:Second First

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lame excuse to make it sound like it's more important than it is. It's like "Columbus was the first to discover the Americas, excluding the vikings and the people already living there."

It's an attempt to give credit where it isn't due and to inflate the importance of an event.

First?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Excluding Saturn's giant moon Titan, which was already known to have an atmosphere, it's the first discovery of an atmosphere on one of the more than 30 moons that orbit the ringed planet.

So, you really mean that it is the second moon of Saturn found to contain an atmosphere? Why not say just that?

international?

[minus_273]

i know bashing the US is cool, but isn't this a NASA project paid for by the US tax payers?